How to create a psychologically safe workplace
Last week I attended Australia’s Workplace Wellness Festival. In the Exhibition Centre above the shimmering waters of Darling Harbour, hundreds of corporate, not-for-profit, government and academic attendees discussed the trends influencing wellness at work. Conversations spanned organisational culture, positive leadership, DEI and so much more. Despite the wide range of topics, each conversation seemed to invite the following question: How can we create psychologically safe workplaces? This article shares a variety of practical insights gleaned from the Festival.
“We are committed to nurturing psychological safety because the work we do is important and the people we work with are important.” – Sharon Gray, Head of People and Culture, OzHarvest
What is psychological safety? And why does it matter right now?
Psychological safety is an essential component of a healthy and productive workplace. It refers to a shared belief that team members can express themselves without fear of negative consequences to their self-image, status or career. Since psychological safety both reduces psychosocial risks and acts as a protective factor against their negative effects, it is particularly relevant for organisations seeking to manage psychosocial risks under the recently amended Work Health and Safety Regulations.
From an individual perspective, people thrive in psychologically safe environments since they are respected for being themselves, included by their peers and supported to contribute their best work. From an organisational standpoint, psychologically safe workplaces are associated with higher engagement, empowerment, commitment, creativity, communication, learning behaviours, innovation and performance (Newman at al., 2017). It’s a long list of benefits!
“As knowledge workers, our cognitive load is already high. We don’t want to increase it with worries about whether we’re safe or not at work.” – Kate Hillman, People, Place and Culture Leader, Oceania at EY
Does everyone have equal access to psychological safety?
Even under the same roof, not everyone has the same experience of psychological safety. Organisations are comprised of diverse and intersecting identities that involve cultural background, socio-economic status, religion, lifestage, gender, sexual orientation, neurostatus and more. Depending on a particular organisation’s currency, certain identities may be valued more than others and thus experience higher psychological safety. This imbalance inside an organisation can undermine collective psychological safety, leading to a ‘speak up’ culture amongst more powerful groups and a ‘silent culture’ elsewhere.
As an example, Manisha Amin, CEO of the Centre for Inclusive Design, spoke of a woman appointed to an all-male board with the objective of bringing a fresh perspective to governance and de-biasing the organisation. Manisha prompted us to consider the effectiveness of this appointment if the woman were expected to think, speak and act the same as everyone else at the table. Her anecdote points to the importance of raising psychological safety for everyone (not just for select identities). This will require us to deepen our understanding of diverse and intersecting identities, their experience of psychological safety at work and how we can make initiatives more inclusive.
A powerful way of driving psychological safety at work is to “equip humans to engage in kind, compassionate and respectful exchanges.” – Allan Ball, Director of White Ribbon Australia
Allan shared the frightening statistic that one-in-four women in Australia has experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. This statistic indicates the urgent need for us to recognise, reward, hire and promote people for kind, compassionate and respectful exchanges. There is no place for apathy where physical and psychological safety are concerned. We must recognise our duty as ethical adults to educate ourselves, speak up and champion change despite discomfort.
How can you engage in psychologically safe conversations?
Psychological safety is created one conversation at time. Speakers at the Festival touched on three elements of psychologically safe conversations: intention, perspective-taking and reflection.
Intention shapes conversations
When we bring a consulting mindset to our interactions, we enter dialogue as an expert. There’s an assumption that we alone can assess and solve the problem at hand, which does not leave much space for other voices. As an alternative, Kate Hillman, People, Place and Culture Leader, Oceania at EY, suggests approaching conversations with “gentle curiosity”. This involves taking a non-judgemental, genuine interest in others with respect for personal boundaries. When you intend to be gently curious, you promote psychological safety and allow deeper connections and insights to emerge.
“Leaders play a pivotal role in modelling gentle curiosity, kind candour and other desired behaviours to cultivate and create more inclusive and connected team environments.” – Kate Hillman, People, Place and Culture Leader, Oceania at EY
Perspective-taking strengthens connection
When you put yourself in another person’s shoes, you can help them to feel understood, valued and respected – which, in turn, promotes psychological safety. Dr Suzy Green, Founder and CEO of The Positivity Institute, spoke about the challenge of understanding diverse perspectives in a multi-generational workforce. She highlighted that the experiences, beliefs and needs of millennials, for example, are likely to be significantly different to those of baby boomers and the generations in between. To connect people across generations, Anthony Tran, Head of Learning and Organisational Development at Grant Thornton, suggests that we ask each other, “What’s your driver for work at this moment in time?” This question recognises that our perspectives are continually evolving as we move through different life stages; the consequence being that psychological safety requires a commitment to ongoing (not one-off) conversations.
Structure supercharges progress.
In her aptly titled presentation, “Walking the Talk”, Jenny Bell, Director of People and Organisational Development at The Fred Hollows Foundation, discussed how their leadership team approached cultural transformation and improved psychological safety. Taking a structured approach, they committed to gathering employee feedback through surveys; supporting executives to develop positive leadership behaviours; and establishing relationship networks through cross-divisional team meetings, specialist culture panels and weekly coffee chats. The Foundation also actively measured its progress against cultural goals to understand the impact of the change initiatives.
“Having a great mission isn’t sufficient for cultural transformation. We needed to be intentional, structured and make behavioural commitments.” – Jenny Bell, Director of People and Organisational Development, The Fred Hollows Foundation
A great way to make the most of umbrella structures (like regular team meetings) is to insert a reflection framework. One such framework was offered in conversation with Michelle McQuaid, Founder of The Wellbeing Lab. You can use the questions below to reflect on your progress against psychological safety goals, or any other ones for that matter.
What’s working well?
Where are we struggling?
What are we learning?
How do we adapt?
What’s next for you?
As you digest the insights above, it is worth considering how psychological safety affects your experience at work. The questions below are designed to walk you through this.
On a scale from 1-10, how do you rate your psychological safety at work? i.e., how comfortable do you feel to speak up?
Why did you choose this number and not a higher or lower one?
Who might score higher or lower than you at work? Why?
Which small step can you take to increase your score?
Which small step can you take to increase someone else’s score?
If you would find it useful to discuss psychological safety in more detail, I invite you to contact me.
Reference
Newman, A., Donohue, R., & Eva, N. (2017). Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Human resource management review, 27(3), 521-535.